WRITE RIGHT

WRITE RIGHT

Written By Jeffrey Gitomer
@GITOMER

KING OF SALES, The author of seventeen best-selling books including The Sales Bible, The Little Red Book of Selling, and The Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude. His live coaching program, Sales Mastery, is available at gitomer.me.

Jeffrey Gitomer’s Writing Guidelines
(not rules)

  • Learn to write by reading good writers.
  • Learn to write by practicing.
  • Learn to write by editing a day later.
  • Learn to write by establishing a structure.
  • Learn to write by understanding that factual, listed, content is powerful.
  • Adverbs, prepositional phrases, and “est” are out.
  • Tone of writing – mine is straight forward, succinct.
  • Voice or author – mine is authoritative.
  • Power of authority in pronouns – first person singular, secondperson, third person
    He or she? No.
  • Writer’s privilege – writing in vernacular, not grammar
    • Using incorrect syntax – ain’t, gonna
    • Grammar – OK sometimes – it’s write like you speak
    • Research vs. your knowledge – proof vs. opinion
    • Graphic word choices – vomit, puke – alliterative
    • Paragraph size – small
    • Repeated themes – major clue, think about this
  • Bold and caps to make points and emphasize words.
  • Grab me at the beginning. Start with a question or short statement.
  • Make me smile, think, or act at the end. End with impact.
  • Give me meat in the middle. All meat.

BIG SECRET: Read aloud when you edit. It’s how does it sound.
It’s NOT how does it read.